Healing brush question

I have an image which is mostly rocks and trees, but which also features a number of people wearing mostly white clothing. I want to remove those people. Normally I'd use the stamp brush to clone part of the greenery over them, PS6-style. However, always one to be right on the cutting edge of technology ;) I thought I'd try this much appreciated healing brush people have been enthusing about since 7.0 came out.

I'm clearly missing something important, 'cos it don't work too well! When I select greenery and brush over the person in the white clothes, I get a smear of green tinted white. I appreciate this "blending" of textures and lightness is what the tool is supposed to do, but that begs the question, when would I want to do that? I can think of plenty of ways to produce a white smear across my image - why add a tool to do it?!

Seriously, I've obviously misunderstood the use of this tool. I thought it was an improved clone stamp, but it's certainly of no use in this instance. What /do/ people use the healing brush for, and under what circumstances is it more or less appropriate than the clone stamp?

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message

I have an image which is mostly rocks and trees, but which also features a number of people wearing mostly white clothing. I want to remove those people. Normally I'd use the stamp brush to clone part of the greenery over them, PS6-style. However, always one to be right on the cutting edge of technology ;) I thought I'd try this much appreciated healing brush people have been enthusing about since 7.0 came out.

I'm clearly missing something important, 'cos it don't work too well! When I select greenery and brush over the person in the white clothes, I get a smear of green tinted white. I appreciate this "blending" of textures and lightness is what the tool is supposed to do, but that begs the question, when would I want to do that? I can think of plenty of ways to produce a white smear across my image - why add a tool to do it?!

Seriously, I've obviously misunderstood the use of this tool. I thought it was an improved clone stamp, but it's certainly of no use in this instance. What /do/ people use the healing brush for, and under what circumstances is it more or less appropriate than the clone stamp?

Try removing blemishes, wrinkles, dust etc from an image using both the clone tool and healing brush, and the
difference becomes immediately apparent. The clone tool is only as effective as the closest matching area in an image, but often there is no appropriate match. That's where the healing brush shines. It's definitely not intended to remove large or disparate areas.

Rick

Derek Fountain wrote:

I have an image which is mostly rocks and trees, but which also features a number of people wearing mostly white clothing. I want to remove those people. Normally I'd use the stamp brush to clone part of the greenery over them, PS6-style. However, always one to be right on the cutting edge of technology ;) I thought I'd try this much appreciated healing brush people have been enthusing about since 7.0 came out.

I'm clearly missing something important, 'cos it don't work too well! When I select greenery and brush over the person in the white clothes, I get a smear of green tinted white. I appreciate this "blending" of textures and lightness is what the tool is supposed to do, but that begs the question, when would I want to do that? I can think of plenty of ways to produce a white smear across my image - why add a tool to do it?!

Seriously, I've obviously misunderstood the use of this tool. I thought it was an improved clone stamp, but it's certainly of no use in this instance. What /do/ people use the healing brush for, and under what circumstances is it more or less appropriate than the clone stamp?

I think you do not use it the proper way. Select a reasonably large area of rock or green first, then paint the whole area you want to remove. The healing brush will blend the newly painted area into the surrounding. If the area you want to heal is rather large, you are better off with the patch tool. To learn about the two tools, you may want to visit Katrin Eismann's homepage at www.digitalretouch.org. Go to "Additional information" "Healing and Patch Info" and download the tuts.

Peter

Peter Wollenberg wrote:

I have an image which is mostly rocks and trees, but which also features a number of people wearing mostly white clothing. I want to remove those people. Normally I'd use the stamp brush to clone part of the greenery over them, PS6-style. However, always one to be right on the cutting edge of technology ;) I thought I'd try this much appreciated healing brush people have been enthusing about since 7.0 came out.

I'm clearly missing something important, 'cos it don't work too well! When I select greenery and brush over the person in the white clothes, I get a smear of green tinted white. I appreciate this "blending" of textures and lightness is what the tool is supposed to do, but that begs the question, when would I want to do that? I can think of plenty of ways to produce a white smear across my image - why add a tool to do it?!

Seriously, I've obviously misunderstood the use of this tool. I thought it was an improved clone stamp, but it's certainly of no use in this instance. What /do/ people use the healing brush for, and under what circumstances is it more or less appropriate than the clone stamp?

I think you do not use it the proper way. Select a reasonably large area of rock or green first, then paint the whole area you want to remove. The healing brush will blend the newly painted area into the surrounding.

And that is exactly why the healing brush would be the wrong tool here. The 'surrounding' is the white people, so the healing brush tries to blend the greenery texture into that white area, keeping the lightness of the white intact. That's not what you want, because that is why you get that smear. You want to fully replace the people, not blend new texture into them, which means you should use the 'old' clone stamp. The healing brush is not a replacement for the clone stamp!

--
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

And that is exactly why the healing brush would be the wrong tool here. The 'surrounding' is the white people, so the healing brush tries to blend the greenery texture into that white area, keeping the lightness of the white intact. That's not what you want, because that is why you get that smear. You want to fully replace the people, not blend new texture into them, which means you should use the 'old' clone stamp. The healing brush is not a replacement for the clone stamp!

Right, so if I have a white wrinkle across a mostly dark photograph, and I try to use the healing brush to remove it, the white will actually stay? It'll be white, with the texture of the area I used to do the healing, but a white streak across the photo nevertheless.

So if it's not for cloning large areas, and it's not for removing wrinkles, what's it for? Only, it seems, for areas where there is damage which happens to be of the same colour as the area under the damage which is to be restored...?

Part of my confusion stems from the Adobe documentation, which shows an image of a soldier's face. The healing brush is used to remove the dark "paint" markings from his face. As far as I can tell, the healing brush doesn't actually do that job.

better off with the patch tool. To learn about the two tools, you may want to visit Katrin Eismann's homepage at www.digitalretouch.org. Go to "Additional information" "Healing and Patch Info" and download the tuts.

I have the first edition of that book and it's excellent. I was hoping for the second edition for Xmas. :o)

I just visited the web page, and there's a couple of PDF documents on the healing brush and the patch tool! Excellent!

Derek Fountain wrote:
....

Right, so if I have a white wrinkle across a mostly dark photograph, and I try to use the healing brush to remove it, the white will actually stay? It'll be white, with the texture of the area I used to do the healing, but a white streak across the photo nevertheless.

So if it's not for cloning large areas, and it's not for removing wrinkles, what's it for? Only, it seems, for areas where there is damage which happens to be of the same colour as the area under the damage which is to be restored...?

Could you put an example online and post the link?
Peter

Derek Fountain wrote:

And that is exactly why the healing brush would be the wrong tool here. The 'surrounding' is the white people, so the healing brush tries to blend the greenery texture into that white area, keeping the lightness of the white intact. That's not what you want, because that is why you get that smear. You want to fully replace the people, not blend new texture into them, which means you should use the 'old' clone stamp. The healing brush is not a replacement for the clone stamp!

Right, so if I have a white wrinkle across a mostly dark photograph, and I try to use the healing brush to remove it, the white will actually stay? It'll be white, with the texture of the area I used to do the healing, but a white streak across the photo nevertheless.

It depends on how wide your brush is. If the brush is roughly the same width or smaller than the wrinkle; yes, you will see a white streak. If the brush is larger than the wrinkle, Photoshop understands that the color on the outside is the background it needs to use to blend into. So you should always use a brush that is wider than the blemish you want to remove. But if you want to remove larger objects (where a wider brush would become inappropriately large) use the clone tool. The healing brush is very good at removing SMALL things, but not so good for removing larger areas.

--
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

It depends on how wide your brush is. If the brush is roughly the same width or smaller than the wrinkle; yes, you will see a white streak. If the brush is larger than the wrinkle, Photoshop understands that the color on the outside is the background it needs to use to blend into. So you should always use a brush that is wider than the blemish you want to remove.

Ah-ha! This makes a lot of sense. A small amount of experimentation shows that this is where I've been going wrong. The healing brush tutorial on Katrin Eismann's website was also very informative.

Thanks for your help.

Another thing to try when you're painting in foliage,
rocks, etc. over a larger area is the Pattern Maker
(under filter).

* Select a good-size chunk of existing
foliage or whatever.
* Pick Pattern Maker from the Filter menu
* Click "Use Image Size" (to generate a pattern the size of your entire image, thus giving you plenty to paint
from)
* Click "Generate" until you see an arrangement you like.
* Click the little "save" icon at the
bottom left of "Tile History" to save the result as a pattern.
* Click cancel to get out of the Pattern Maker
* Paint using the pattern stamp tool and the
pattern you just created (pattern stamp shares a tool
slot with the clone stamp; the pattern to paint with
is selected on the options bar).

I find this is the best way to fill in grass, foliage,
and other similar stuff.

Russell Williams
not speaking for Adobe Systems

"Russell Williams" wrote in message

Another thing to try when you're painting in foliage,
rocks, etc. over a larger area is the Pattern Maker
(under filter).

* Select a good-size chunk of existing
foliage or whatever.
* Pick Pattern Maker from the Filter menu
* Click "Use Image Size" (to generate a pattern the size of your entire image, thus giving you plenty to paint
from)
* Click "Generate" until you see an arrangement you like.
* Click the little "save" icon at the
bottom left of "Tile History" to save the result as a pattern.
* Click cancel to get out of the Pattern Maker
* Paint using the pattern stamp tool and the
pattern you just created (pattern stamp shares a tool
slot with the clone stamp; the pattern to paint with
is selected on the options bar).

I find this is the best way to fill in grass, foliage,
and other similar stuff.

Very, very cool. Thanks Russell.

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